Jie Ming didn’t hesitate.

He swiftly redirected his Grand Radiance, aligning its light wheel toward the camp’s interior.

In an instant, he unleashed a volley of fully charged energy bolts in that direction.

But Jie Ming wasn’t attacking the camp. Under his precise control, the bolts didn’t shoot outward but converged before him, forming a radiant energy shield glowing with searing light!

This was why he primarily used energy bolts as his attack method.

The bolts had physical properties, and when gathered, they formed a reactive shield with exceptional physical resistance!

The runic artifacts’ design allowed not only continuous spellcasting but also easier control over released spells compared to other artifacts.

Jie Ming had entertained this idea long ago, but his mental strength hadn’t been sufficient for such precise manipulation back then.

Now, with the enhanced spirituality of the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror and his advancement to mid-Foundation Establishment, he could finally execute this defensive technique.

The moment everyone raised their shields…

From the camp, a brilliance far more dazzling, searing, and magnificent than Jie Ming’s energy shield erupted!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Centered on the entire wizard camp, a colossal geomantic array spanning dozens of kilometers was instantly activated by the three fifth-rank wizards!

The moment the array ignited, its overwhelming energy fluctuations made the earth groan.

At its core was an energy reserve painstakingly built by the wizards over four years, buried deep underground.

Amid an earth-shattering roar, a massive, utterly destructive energy beam shot from the array’s center at the camp’s core—not skyward, but straight into the ground below!

Crack… Boom!!!

The entire plane seemed to tear apart under the force!

The terrifying energy impact triggered a cataclysmic earthquake underground.

The earth wailed, space warped, and countless streams of magma erupted skyward like a volcanic swarm!

This was a strike aimed at the plane’s subterranean ley lines.

An attack capable of piercing a planet’s core!

Then, relentless shockwaves, carrying waves of magma and shattered rock, spread furiously in all directions!

Jie Ming’s Grand Radiance

energy shield, before this terrifying shockwave, was like a lone skiff in a raging sea, hurled back and trembling precariously.

The shield’s light flickered violently, like glass on the verge of shattering! Jie Ming’s muscles tensed, veins bulging on his forehead as he poured everything into maintaining this final defense!

But he endured only the second wave of the shock.

The defensive node before him bore the brunt of the first impact!

Even with the node’s formidable protections, it groaned in agony under the onslaught!

The energy field, strained beyond its limits, emitted a teeth-grinding crack-crack sound!

“Aaah!”

Surrounding wizards, caught in the shockwave, used every ounce of strength to maintain their defenses!

Some, unprepared or with weaker protections, let out piercing screams as their shields shattered instantly, their bodies torn apart!

As the shockwave subsided, Jie Ming struggled to steady himself.

Suppressing the boiling blood in his veins, he cast a shocked gaze toward where the camp once stood.

The massive fortress that had been the wizard camp… was gone!

In its place, the hundreds of square kilometers of land had been blasted into a bottomless crater!

Inside the pit, molten magma still churned, and lingering energy waves scorched the land into a blackened realm of death!

It was as if… the plane’s very framework had been pierced by this strike!

After this apocalyptic blow, Jie Ming stared at the terrifying abyss that seemed to pierce the entire plane, his heart shaken beyond measure.

“Could it be… the true overlord of this plane is hiding underground?” he wondered.

Moments after the attack’s devastating aftermath, Jie Ming suddenly felt an odd… indescribable “distortion.”

It was a sensation harder to articulate than the earlier vague “time stasis,” as if the plane’s foundational existence was being subtly manipulated and altered by an invisible force.

Instinctively, he followed this feeling and glanced upward.

The node’s core, still buzzing, flickered with runes despite surviving the explosive shockwave.

But the light’s frequency pulsed erratically, as if disturbed.

What shook him more was the distant horizon, where the massive dust cloud, stirred by the magma giants and snow beasts’ movements, began to shift.

Jie Ming understood: “The time stasis… it’s been lifted!”

He frowned, scanning the surviving magma giants and snow beasts that had endured the attack’s aftermath.

Though both monster hordes appeared to have suffered heavy losses, with many reduced to fragments by the energy blast’s shockwave, Jie Ming felt it wasn’t enough!

“No way…” he muttered.

Based on his understanding of energy fields and runes, a strong doubt surfaced:

“Even an attack of that plane-shattering scale was targeted at a specific underground region. Unless it directly hit the enemy’s energy field core, there’s no way a fully formed time-stasis field like the one on those monsters could be so easily neutralized.”

A time-stasis field, especially a strategic-grade one of this magnitude, had an unimaginably robust and powerful core.

A mere area-of-effect attack could kill creatures at its edges but couldn’t touch the core’s foundational laws!

“The only explanation is…” Jie Ming’s pupils contracted sharply.

“Another entity intervened, dispelling the time stasis! And that entity is likely the true enemy of this campaign!”

Before he could think further, as most wizards barely regained their mobility, a new command rang out:

“All personnel, take the Time-Coagulation Potion and evacuate the Flamefrost Plane, now!!”

A resolute voice echoed through the magical network into every wizard’s mind.

It was both unfamiliar and familiar—the voice of the campaign’s commander, sixth-rank wizard Augustine!

“Move! Move!!”

“Evacuate! Evacuate!!”

Every wizard who’d recovered didn’t hesitate, acting per the mission’s orders.

Jie Ming was no exception.

Though his body was weakened from the prior shockwave and his mental energy hadn’t fully recovered, he didn’t pause.

Upon hearing Augustine’s command, he swiftly downed a vial of “Time-Coagulation Potion” glowing with an eerie blue light!

He’d heard of its effects: it could briefly disrupt or counteract abnormal time flows around the user—essentially countering the time stasis outside the node.

After the devastating impact, no wizard cared about their battered state.

They frantically gulped the precious potion and, breaking through the node’s Temporal Stability Anchor defenses, soared toward the sky’s nearly healed rift—the passage to the Ship Plane.

Jie Ming followed closely, feeling the denser, more chaotic planar law repulsion after the time stasis lifted, like countless needles piercing his body.

Barely airborne, a bone-chilling dread surged through him, making his hair stand on end!

It was a sensation beyond mere planar repulsion—a blend of rejection and mortal danger!

It felt as if the entire plane’s laws rejected him, with lethal threats lurking in every direction!

This sudden, overwhelming danger nearly drove Jie Ming to instinctively activate his Light Transformation divine ability to fight for survival!

Thankfully, his mental fortitude was ironclad, and he suppressed the primal fear threatening to overwhelm him.

The spatial rift was within reach; crossing it would bring him to the Ship Plane!

Guided by instinct and aided by the potion, he gritted his teeth and charged at full speed toward the slowly closing sky rift!

Pop…

The moment he passed through, his body felt lighter.

A surreal sense of safety washed over him, leaving him slightly limp.

But when he turned to look behind, his heart leaped to his throat.

Not only the wizards but also the powerful magma giants and snow beasts, led by their respective kings, were rapidly flying toward the Ship Plane!

Their target was this “ark” floating in the void.

Yet, watching these enemies approach without action, the wizards remained remarkably restrained.

Given the earlier situation, these monsters were now allied with them.

Though unclear why the monsters followed, since Augustine hadn’t stopped them, the wizards refrained from attacking.

Jie Ming, still shaken from the eerie distortion after the time stasis lifted and the brief but hair-raising sense of danger, shared the others’ caution.

Especially seeing the monster hordes fleeing alongside them, he, like the other wizards, turned his gaze back to the Flamefrost Plane.

With the time stasis fully broken, the true enemy should appear next.

And as he’d suspected, it did—though its true nature was beyond expectation!

As all the wizards, including Jie Ming, stared at the vast territory of the Flamefrost Plane below…

A spine-chilling transformation began!

It started with the torn earth from the attack.

The crisscrossing black fault lines, once marking the boundary between the Fireflame and Frostshadow Realms, began to writhe and expand!

They were no longer mere cracks but pulsed like living veins, silently forming a massive “mouth”!

From within, it spewed endless torrents of molten magma.

Then, the atmospheres of the Fireflame and Frostshadow Realms began to churn violently!

No longer mere gases, they gathered and swirled, forming two massive, vortex-like colored orbs!

One, a red orb symbolizing heat and energy, represented the Fireflame Realm; the other, a blue orb of cold and time, stood for the Frostshadow Realm.

These two colossal orbs rotated slowly in the sky, resembling two giant, gleaming eyes!

Soon, the entire Flamefrost Plane completed its despair-inducing transformation—no longer a mere plane but a colossal, living entity with a terrifying visage!

On either side were the two massive, rotating “eyes.”

Between them, a vertical, gaping maw-like chasm slowly opened, endlessly spewing scorching magma, as if to devour all!

And that wasn’t all.

After this monstrous entity of magma mouth and eyes completed its transformation, it unleashed a grand “soul fluctuation” that swept across the Ship Plane!

Though the fluctuation carried no useful information, its emotion declared its awakening, its existence, its… fury!

If the plane’s earlier changes had led the wizards to speculate whether its overlord could control the entire plane in battle, this terrifying soul fluctuation shattered their last hopes!

What a grand soul, what terrifying emotion, what an astonishing scene!

Under the impact of that soul fluctuation, every wizard on the Ship Plane, including Jie Ming, stared in dumbfounded disbelief, forced to accept the truth—

The Flamefrost Plane was alive!!!